Another Of My Neighbors

There are so many sides to Cotacachi that it's difficult to portray the complexity of it at times.  These photos give you a slightly different view of life for some people here.

This is the front door of one of my neighbors.  She lives about five doors down from me. It's a little hard to see but there is an open space at the top of the bottom right panel in the door, not to mention the huge gap at the bottom of it.

 Here's the woman who lives there.  She's working on something inside the house to secure the door.  There is no lock but she spent enough time that I suspect she was using some other method of holding the door closed--perhaps some kind of latch or something.

After she finished with the bottom of the door she spent a couple of minutes wrapping heavy string through the metal ring on the door to secure it from above.  The small pan at her feet is her begging bowl.  Some people will give her food or coins.

And now she's ready to go on her rounds.  One thing I didn't get a chance to photograph today are any of the dogs she takes care of.  As little as she has, she always takes care of the street dogs as well.  I've seen her share her food with them and when she goes past my building she always comes into the front gate and turns on the water faucet for just a few seconds so some water can college on the stones--for the dogs.

This woman has more dignity than I could ever hope to have.  I've never seen her actually ask for money.  She just carries her saucepan around with her and some people give her food or money.